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July 24, 2009

SEPERATED AT BIRTH

Maybe George Jefferson and Louis Gates don't look exactly alike, but they do seem to have one thing in common.  They both seem to think that anything bad that happens to them is a direct result of being African-American.  Look, everybody knows that only bad things happen when you give a cop a hard time.  Black or White, when you get the urge to start yelling and swearing at a cop, you can expect to see the cuffs come out.  When you look at the circumstances involved with the Cambridge incident, you can see where both sides could have handled the situation differently.  To Mr. Gates point, he owns the house he was in, he just got back from a trip and he was probably exhausted.  The police respond to a complaint of a possible break-in and they find Mr. Gates, who they remove from the house in handcuffs.  From the police point of view, the house had been broken into the previous week.  A neighbor called the police who you would have assumed would have recognized Mr. Gates if he was their neighbor.  They try to get information from Mr. Gates, who becomes loud, belligerent, and sarcastic.  The police warn that if he keeps it up, he will be arrested.  The bottom line is that Mr. Gates claims that if he wasn't a black man living in America, this wouldn't have happened.  He is wrong.  If he was white, the same thing would have happened, it just wouldn't have been "news worthy".

July 18, 2009

THE FAMILY BUSINESS

Apparently, nepotism is alive in well in Rhode Island.  At least in the Superior Court anyway.  Atty. Kristen Rodgers, daughter of presiding Superior Court Judge William Rodgers, was appointed associate justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court.  Let's face it, this type of thing happens every day in the private sector.  A person starts a business, it becomes very successful.  The founder retires and names his, often incompetent, offspring to take over the reins and the company goes down the toilet in a matter of years.  Look, I don't know Kristen Rodgers.  She may end up being the best Superior Court justice this state has ever seen. It just reeks of favoritism, quid pro quo, or simply that same ol' stuff.  Welcome to Rhode Island.

July 04, 2009

WEATHER OR NOT

Actually, the question was whether or not I wanted to even write about this topic.  Everyone is so sick of the wet weather, I don't think they want to be reminded about it.  The thing is, this stretch of unstable weather stretches back to last year.  Don't forget that we got more snow last winter than we got in a long time.  I don't remember exactly how much. but I measure it by how many times I broke out my snowblower.  It was an awful lot of times.  Now here we are in July and I haven't even thought about putting in my air conditioner.  It's like one or two days of decent weather, than we get four days of cool, cloudy, and damp weather.  The thing is, as soon as we get a week without rain, when the temps get up to the 90's, you'll hear one of the area's local weather people say, "We could really use some rain!".  That will probably make me want to jump off the Braga Bridge. 

The other thing is, can we get some decent weather people on the local news stations?  I mean what's up with some of these people?  That guy Pete Mangione has got to be the biggest goof to ever report the local weather, he recently took over the #1 spot from fellow Ch 12 weather reporter TJ Del Santo.  By the way, is it required to be Italian to report the weather on Ch 12?  Tony Petraca, Pete Mangione, TJ Del Santo, and Michele Muscatello.  I've said it before and I'll say it again right now, the best weather reporter in the Providence market is Jim Corbin. 

June 26, 2009

WACKO JACKO

What better way of introducing my new site design than with a story about Michael Jackson?  Here's a story from the LA Times.  There's no denying that Jackson is probably as talented an entertainer as there has ever been.  He certainly deserves the title "King of Pop".  The only thing is, the last 20 years or so, Jackson has earned the title "King of Weird".  The only people who are happy about Jackson's passing is the news media.  They have a story they can beat to death for the next month.  Not to display a morbid sense of humor but, I heard Jackson actually died of food poisoning.  According to reports, the Medical Examiner found evidence that Jackson had recently ate some 11 year old nuts.  OK, relax, so it may be insensitive, but I can't help but believe that the world is a little safer place for kids minus Jackson.